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Video Premiere: Born Ruffians, “Nova Leigh”

Why aren't Born Ruffians bigger? This shit is wildly catchy. "Nova Leigh" is their latest video, and besides being all about clipped guitar and staccato drums rolls, it's also got a weird mirror thing going on in both the band shots as well as in the hooded dude's face. Director Jared Raab explains: "We knew that the footage of the band, shot in studio, couldn't just be straightforward performance footage if it was going to match the fragmented face narrative," continues Raab, "but we also didn't want to use some sort of cheesy computer generated kaleidoscope effect either. In the end we devised a system of shooting into shattered mirrors that had been reassembled by hand. We spent an entire day just breaking mirrors and gluing them back together, only to smash them again on set." The whole thing is based on Jeremy Olson's cover art for Say It, the record that the track comes from, which—surprise!—features fractured, broken shards of a face.